


But Now I See

by MoonCat457



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate universe - canon divergent, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, Boggarts, First Kiss, First War with Voldemort, Getting Together, Hogwarts Era, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Monsters, Nightmares, Non-Explicit Sex, Raising Harry Potter, Sharing a Bed, Sirius Black Never Went to Azkaban, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Raise Harry Potter, Unsettling, werewolf attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonCat457/pseuds/MoonCat457
Summary: Sirius and Remus spent their lives searching for monsters—under the bed, in wardrobes, around corners, and down dark alleys—but they never stopped to think that they were looking for the wrong kind of monsters.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44
Collections: RS Fireside Tales Vol.3





	But Now I See

**Author's Note:**

> Written for RS Fireside Tales 2021.  
>   
> Prompt: We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us. – Charles Darwin  
>   
> Title taken from [O Children by Nick Cage & The Bad Seeds](https://open.spotify.com/track/29FQEJUtBAnxWEkux39d7I?si=mfARrBSkRxaVqvn_byyjoQ).  
>   
> Thank you to my beta reader, [Raquel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtoarguewithyou/pseuds/justtoarguewithyou).

Most children believe in monsters: giant, terrifying creatures that hide in the shadows of their room, whispering to them and making the floor creek with their footsteps. And most children believe they’re more than just creatures they heard about in a story and started to haunt their nightmares. To them, monsters are real and lie in wait to frighten or hurt the children whose rooms they lurk in. And when Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were children, they were no different.

—

_“Mama?” Remus croaks as his mother goes to shut off the light._

_“Yes?” Hope says, turning to see her son hidden beneath a plaid quilt, so only his tawny curls and sparkling green eyes are visible._

_“Can you chase them away?” he whispers, afraid ‘they’ might hear him if he speaks any louder._

_“Of course, Annwyl,” Hope says. She knows that monsters prefer forests to the tiny space beneath her son’s bed, but she says nothing. Instead, she smiles and makes a show of chasing the monsters away from every corner of the room, singing a song as she goes._

*

_Sirius, the young heir to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black’s glory, lies stiffly beneath the cold and unwelcoming blankets of his four-poster bed. He stares at the dancing shadows made by his bedside candle._

_The door jerks open, making him bolt upright. “I thought I told you to blow that light out,” Walburga snaps._

_“I’m scared, Mother,” Sirius whispers. “I think I heard a sound from under the bed—”_

_“Enough of this nonsense. Blacks are not afraid of the dark or of monsters.” She waves a hand, wandlessly extinguishing the candle and plunging the room into darkness._

* * *

But after a while, most children stop believing that there are monsters under their bed. They grow older and find explanations for things they thought were signs of monsters. They attribute the creaking floor to the house settling, the whispers to the wind outside, and the shadows to tricks of the light. The monsters that live under the bed become figments of their imagination.

Sirius and Remus, however, knew better. As they got older, they learned that not only were the monsters tangible and real, but they weren’t limited to spaces under the bed.

—

_It’s just the wind. At least, that’s what Remus tells himself. It sounds like a wolf howling, but it’s just the wind. And the shadow dancing on his wall that looks suspiciously like a fanged beast is just the moonlight casting a shadow off the barren tree outside. And the scraping sound against the windowpane is only a tree branch, not claws._

_Remus squeezes his eyes tight and tells himself there’s no monster. His mother chased it away with her song._

_But a song only works on metaphorical monsters, not real ones like the werewolf sneaking through his bedroom window._

*

_Sirius creeps into the attic. The sound of Regulus counting downstairs is faint, but Sirius can tell that he only has another few seconds before Regulus reaches one-hundred and starts searching for him. He spies an old wardrobe in the corner—the perfect hiding spot._

_Only the spot is already in use. As Sirius tiptoes over to it, careful to avoid the creaky areas in the floor that might give away his location, the wardrobe begins to shake. Black smoke seeps out through the gaps around the doors and floods into the room before finally forming into a semi-solid figure._

* * *

Knowledge is a powerful tool against monsters, though, which is what Hogwarts gave to Remus and Sirius. They learned how to identify monsters and fight them, and that knowledge helped them ease their fears. They stopped checking under the bed every night, but that didn’t stop the memories of their childhood monsters.

Remus’ monster had a name—Fenrir Greyback—and he lived with the constant reminder of him every month with his transformations and the nightmares that preceded the full moon. Sirius had monsters that lived in his nightmares, too—the black smoke figure accompanied by his mother’s disappointed voice, scolding him for not being braver.

They had each other, though, and by the time they were teenagers, they’d gotten good at chasing away each other’s nightmares.

—

_Remus’ whimpers are so quiet that Sirius almost doesn’t hear them. But their beds are next to each other, and Sirius isn’t a very sound sleeper, especially not during the days leading up to the full when he knows Remus is at his most vulnerable._

_Sirius quietly pulls his bed curtains back and pads over to Remus’ bedside. “Moons?” he whispers. “Do you want company?” There isn’t a verbal answer, but the curtains part, allowing him entry. He slips under the mountain of blankets Remus always sleeps with and lies on his back._

_Remus instinctively curls into Sirius’ side as Sirius begins carding a hand slowly through his tawny curls to soothe him._

*

_When Remus wakes in the middle of the night, he notices Sirius’ bed is empty. Worry setting in, he pads down the stairs to find Sirius staring into the fireplace._

_“Couldn’t sleep,” Sirius mumbles, as Remus sits down beside him. “Didn’t want to keep bothering you.”_

_“Hey.” When Sirius looks up, he tucks a strand of his long, black wavy hair behind his ear. “It’s not bothering me if I want to help.”_

_Sirius’ breath catches, and his tongue darts out to wet his own lips as he stares at Remus’. Summoning his courage, Remus leans in to bring their lips together._

* * *

But they could only chase away each other’s monsters for so long. Although things were technically safe at Hogwarts, a war raged on outside its walls. Stories of monsters splashed across the front page of every newspaper, but they weren’t limited to the kind in their textbooks and nightmares. A new brand of human monster emerged from the woodwork—human ones of vile character, identifiable by the snake and skull tattoos on their forearms and united by their corrupt pureblood agenda.

—

_Remus chokes on his morning tea when he hears the whispered news. A werewolf attack in Hogsmeade. He knew it. He had heard another one during the last moon._

_Sirius pats him on the back and raises an eyebrow. “Alright?” It asks wordlessly._

_Remus spins around and asks Dorcas, the Ravenclaw prefect he’d heard whispering with her friend, for her newspaper. As he scans the article, his face goes pale. He feels Sirius’ arm slip around his lower back. It’s the only thing anchoring him to the moment as he stares at the suspect’s name in black and white._

_Greyback._

*

_Sirius shuts the door to Grimmauld Place behind him, careful not to let it creak loudly enough that it might wake up his parents and little brother. Slinging his undetectably extended backpack over his shoulder, he makes his way down the street so he can call the Knight Bus without being seen._

_He pays the fare to the Potter’s House in Godric’s Hollow, then goes to a bed toward the back. He lies down and curls in on himself, shivering at the image of his cousin proudly showing off the skull and snake tattoo emblazoned on her arm._

* * *

Graduation came, and Remus and Sirius became teenage soldiers in the war, like many of their peers. When Dumbledore came around, informing them of the underground organization he formed to fight the newest, most evil monster the wizarding world had yet seen, Remus and Sirius, the true Gryffindors they were, decided they had no other choice but to put their fears aside and their education to work. Instead of waiting for the monsters to come to them in their dreams, they went in search of them. They checked around dark corners and down dark alleys, equipped with spells to defeat them.

—

_Sirius pulls Remus into the shadows and presses himself up against the wall. He brings a finger to his lips, a signal to his partner—in life and on this mission—to be silent._

_Remus nods and grips his wand tighter in one hand while the other squeezes Sirius’ hand briefly. “Be careful. I love you,” it says wordlessly._

_Sirius peeks around the corner, catches a glimpse of the silver skull mask, and pulls back only moments before a green spell flies right through where his head was only moments ago._

_Remus’ hand tightens on his for a split second, then he’s gone, jumping around the corner and producing an impressive shield charm while Sirius leaps out and fires off a succession of stunning spells._

* * *

They were barely out of their teens when their best friends became parents and had to go into hiding. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they were only twenty years old and had already encountered more monsters than most wizards four times their age, they started losing trust in the people around them. The looming threat of a traitor that had forced their best friends under the protection of the fidelius charm also forced them to verify the identity of everyone they encountered. They were no longer searching for monsters in the shadows but in each other.

—

_Remus springs up at the sound of a knock on the door to the flat. He checks through the peephole and sees Sirius standing there, a little battered and worse for wear, but otherwise in one piece. He shakes as he grips his wand tightly and calls out through the door, “Where did we first make love?”_

_Sirius’s tired expression warms as he smiles at the peephole. “My bedroom at the Potter’s.”_

_Remus frantically lifts the protection charms on the door while Sirius continues._

_“I was too distracted by how you beautiful you looked in the summer moonlight that we forgot the silencing charms and—”_

_Remus flings the door open and pulls Sirius inside, hugging him fiercely._

_“Sirius!” Remus clutches at his back._

_Sirius softly grunts then drops his forehead to Remus’ shoulder once they’ve both ridden through their orgasms. He doesn’t move right away, wanting to maintain the closeness that had become so rare._

_“I was so worried,” Remus whispers after a while. “You were gone for so much longer this time. I thought—” Remus lets out a choked noise. “I thought they’d found you because you’re the secret keeper and—”_

_Sirius shushes him and presses a kiss to his sweaty forehead before rolling off of him. He waves his hand for a wandless cleaning spell, then gathers Remus into his chest to stroke his wild curls. He hates lying to him. They were supposed to chase away each other’s fears, not cause more of them. So he makes a decision to let him in on the switch._

* * *

When Voldemort was defeated, the world stopped checking for monsters. They thought they no longer existed, but Remus and Sirius knew better.

—

_The letter comes from Dumbledore letting Remus and Sirius know what happened to their best friends—well, it’s addressed to Remus alone, seeing as it’s requesting that he turn Sirius over to the Aurors for betraying the Potters to the Death Eaters. Remus knows better, though. He knows who the real traitor is._

_He also knows that Sirius is reckless, which is why when Sirius bolts out of the flat without so much as a word, Remus panics. He frantically fires off an owl to Alastor Moody, hoping to explain the switch and prevent Sirius’ arrest… At least for selling out James and Lily._

_Then he sits and waits, hoping that Sirius isn’t out doing something else he could be thrown in Azkaban for._

_Sirius clutches a trembling Harry to his chest as he climbs out of the rubble of what was once the Potter’s house in Godric’s Hollow. He catches a glimpse of Hagrid in the distance, yelling at him to stop because he’s meant to bring Harry to his Aunt and Uncle’s, but he ignores him and throws a leg over his bike._

_He gets back to the flat and raps on the door. Remus throws it open without asking a question—verifying identities doesn’t seem to matter much anymore with Voldemort gone._

_Remus relaxes at the sight of Harry cradled in Sirius’ arms. He lowers his wand and allows Sirius to pull him into a one-armed embrace, careful to not crush Harry between them._

_“I’m his Godfather, I had to—”_

_“I know.”_

_Alastor Moody stands behind Remus, presumably to question him about James and Lily, but Sirius will deal with that in a minute._

* * *

After that, they didn’t need to look for monsters anymore. They knew exactly where to find them. Monsters didn’t just hide in the shadows under the bed, in wardrobes, or down dark alleys. They hid in the daylight, too. Monsters weren’t limited to werewolves, and bogarts, and Death Eaters. They were inside of everyone, even a person you thought was your best friend.

However, after bedtime stories of Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump or The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, when little Harry would ask his Paddy and Moony to check for monsters, they would. Harry didn’t need to be told that monsters existed inside of everyone—he’d learn that on his own soon enough. But the longer that Sirius and Remus were able to prolong that discovery, the better. Because life was a little better, a little happier, with the knowledge that monsters could be defeated with a song and a nightlight.


End file.
